McCain Is a “Centrist,” Not a “Maverick”

The answer to the question is no, but it’s not because there ever was a “straight-talking maverick” to be reborn. It isn’t even an intriguing question. The idea that McCain has ever been a maverick is one of the most tiresome and enduring cliches in contemporary politics. McCain has made a career out of using conservatives in his party as a foil and often as a punching bag whenever he has wanted to grandstand and moralize about any issue. He has also made a habit of positioning himself in favor of whatever the fashionable Washington consensus has happened to be. It is no accident that all of McCain’s famous apostasies have aligned him with “centrist” conventional wisdom, and he has cultivated his reputation as a “centrist” to win fawning admiration from the press, which many journalists have been only too happy to provide.

Sometimes this has involved breaking with his party, which is what originally earned him the “maverick” label, and sometimes it has involved lining up with his party’s leadership, but at all times it requires him to denigrate and dismiss conservatives as foolish or reckless or perhaps even evil. This has not been hard duty for McCain. Policy substance has no bearing on this, as McCain will invariably side with the fashionable consensus view whether it makes sense or not. It has only been during election seasons when McCain felt vulnerable to a voter backlash that he has tacked back towards more conservative positions, as he did most egregiously on immigration during his re-election bid last year. In any case, there is nothing brave or independent-minded in denouncing Republican holdouts on raising the debt ceiling. This is the definition of taking the path of least resistance.

Cillizza acknowledges as much near the end:

The less favorable view of McCain’s journey over the last decade is that he has bent to the political winds — embracing the maverick mantle when it served his purposes and walking away from it when it didn’t.

Hide 7 comments

7 Responses to McCain Is a “Centrist,” Not a “Maverick”

But, to give “credit” where it’s due, I think McCain does break from conventional wisdom on many foreign policy questions. That’s mostly because he always defaults to the maximally aggressive option in every situation. So I don’t think the relevant question is whether he’s a “maverick.” It’s whether he’s got any judgment, and the answer’s clearly “no.”

I’m not so sure that he breaks from conventional wisdom as much as it might seem. What McCain often does on foreign policy is to take what are Washington consensus positions (e.g., NATO expansion, opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, support for democracy promotion, projecting American power to promote “values,” etc.) and dial them up to 11. Even the “surge” was the politically desirable alternative in Washington at the start of 2007, and he embraced it with all the gusto of someone who hardly ever saw a troop escalation he couldn’t support. One complicating factor in all of this that I didn’t mention is McCain’s habit to take positions to spite politicians who have defeated him at the polls.

I think I basically agree with you. But the centrist DC line is very aggressive, and the Republicans tend to be much more aggressive than the centrist line, and McCain stands out as an unusually aggressive and irresponsible Republican. So his stands on foreign policy do often seem to be out of the mainstream. Maybe that’s because he’s pushing conventional wisdom to its parodic and self-defeating extreme.

That said, I don’t think this makes him brave, or a maverick. He seems to free-ride on his unearned reputation for political integrity. So instead of being described as reckless, insane, immoral, etc., his bellicosity is not taken seriously, and dismissed as an example of his righteousness (e.g., “Well, that’s not the right policy, but you have to give him credit for sticking to his principles”). I suppose that’s a byproduct of the fact that he really IS just ramping up acceptable policies and attitudes to bizarre extremes–no one in the center can really attack him strongly, because they can’t quite bring themselves to disagree with the principles that underlie his positions.

As I like to point out whenever John McCain is the topic of conversation, he did graduate fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy and did lose five planes during his naval career (including the one shot down over North Vietnam). That indicates to me that he is not an especially intelligent man, which goes a long way to explaining his often bizarre political positions. And let’s not forget that he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. The press loved him because he attacked the Republican Party, but, when it came down to choosing between McCain and a Democrat, the press showed where its true allegiance lay. The fact that McCain was shocked that “his base” had turned on him merely confirms my first point above.

I am curious as to those who attack McCain for being a RINO realize that without people like mcCain, we wouldn’t get anything done in Washington. We don’t get much done now, but considering McCain/Feingold, McCain/Kennedy, McCain/Lieberman bills, I’d say he is much more willing to work and compromise than the Ted Cruz, Rand Paul wing of the GOP.